We had a very philosophical and multi-topic meeting at La
Madeleine's. We had 3 attendees: (from
left to right) Elena Swindull, VJ Arjan, and Tommy Schultze.
Geopolitics of the U.S. military strike on Syria
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| Putin and Obama at recent G20 Summit in St. Petersberg |
We
discussed first, of course, the most pressing geopolitical issue, which is a
potential U.S. military strike on Syria.
Even though, there are tentative agreements pressed by Russia for Syria
to hand over their chemical stockpiles to avoid a military strike, that does not
necessarily mean that it will happen.
VJ
had taken some thought regarding the issue and saw that there may be several consequences
of a strike on Syria:
-
The largest blowback may come from Lebanon and Hezbollah, who is a neighbor,
and may incite Hezbollah to antagonize the region against the United States and
Israel
-
There may be an indirect increase on the price of oil through Iran, as Syria
does not have a noteworthy oil output.
Iran, a Syrian ally, can apply pressure by making things difficult for
its buyers who seek their shipments of oil from the Strait of Hormuz, which
especially China and India rely upon as their main source.
-
Turkey is tied indirectly, but moreso on the financial front. There have been several public demonstrations
to the recent ascendancy to a non-secular, Islamicized political party
especially by the youth who want to keep Turkey a secular state. Should their political leanings sympathize
with the Syrians, foreign investors, who have flooded their markets over the
past few years, will be less willing to trust their money over.
We
then discussed the impact on the price of oil.
The reality is that OPEC has had some internal dissension of late that prevents
it from throwing about its full weight.
For instance, as a result of some Iranian threats on Israel last year,
Saudi Arabia was pressured by the "international community" into
setting up oil sanctions against Iran.
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| King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia |
In
addition, it's chief player, Saudi Arabia, has historically been bent upon
meeting the worlds growing demand for oil by increasing its output. However, this is not what countries like
Venezuela want, who are dependent on the price of oil and want it to be sold as
expensively as possible, to fund their nationally subsidized programs.
This
is also not to mention that emerging replacements to oil, like Canadian shale oil
and ethanol, could begin to play larger roles and so the demand for oil would
decrease, certainly over the long-run. So
the resulting scenario could be that should there be an increase in the price
of oil, it may primarily be from speculation and not so much with any change to
fundamental market forces.
Syria
has, of course, issued military threats of its own, naming certain
"repurcussions" should the U.S. issue a military strike. Tommy went on to mention so-called "Dead
Man Switches" which are authorized by Congress for unilateral retaliation
towards any country who "threatens our national security interest".
In
other words, should Syria send over a chemical weapon to be used against the
United States that causes large-scale casualities, the Dead Man's Switch
ensures that militarily everything is done to wipe out the enemy.
Tommy
went on and mentioned how the Dead Man's Switch does not need approval from
Congress first and was initially used during the Cold War to cope with the
countless threats from the Soviet Union and their tremendous stockpile of
nuclear weapons.
VJ
mentioned that the U.S. did not unravel this plan after the Soviet Union
collapsed and is therefore in existence today, which he feel is unfortunate
given that the U.S. has urged and pressured other nations to dismantle their
weapons of mass destruction.
The New Energy vs. Old Energy
Tommy
discussed that the emerging technologies regarding energy, such as solar, wind,
hydrogen, natural gas, etc. will be made available by the same companies who
control the main forms of energy today, namely oil and coal.
The
reason for this is that given the extensive backing of sheer capital these
companies possess, many of them have been smart enough to already see the
coming tide and have bought out patents regarding these emerging technologies
and they have purposefully shelved them as long as the current cash cows
continue to lay their golden eggs.
He
went on to say that market forces, along with political ones, in the desire to
unfund and weaken terrorism, will naturally push energy technologies off of oil
and onto other forms of energy. According
to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there are about 16 million cars sold
in the United States each year. By some
estimates, electric car sales will account for 20% of these sales by 2020.
Also
the average Miles Per Gallon estimates, according to U.S. committments to the
EPA, are expected to double by 2020 to 50 miles per gallon, from 25 today. Therefore, the need of large quantities of
oil may be reserved for those nations who cannot afford these technologies, but
most of those top quartile nations will be making these shifts, which will
naturally weaken the demand for oil.
The Path of Least Resistance - The Lemming Mentality
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably
why so few people engage in it." - Henry Ford
"We are animals that are taught to be human beings." -
Mark Twain
We
all turned our thoughts to a very philosophical topic which really stemmed from
the premise of how exactly political scientists calculate the risks and
potential consequences of an action in any given situation.
The
conclusion we came to is that since it is very likely for the people of a
certain region to identify with a certain belief structure, whether it is
religion, race, nationalism, sex, etc., it is therefore very probable that that
the likely reaction of the people in a region is going to be the same.
In
other words, and respectfully, most people do not have a mind of their own and
are content simply following the crowd.
It is why Plato remarked back in antiquity, that it is the rare
individual who will have the fortitude "to stand strong amidst the wave of
the masses."
This
observation can be made in any aspect of life that, according to Tommy, that combines
higher order cognitive thinking, emotions, and the survival instinct. Nationalism and religion (especially
religious extremism) are such examples.
VJ
mentioned, for instance, in World War II, it was only when the nation of
Germany identified itself as belonging to the Nazi party with the Aryan
supremacy agenda that it was able to wage war with united front. VJ remarked that just as culpable as Hitler
was for the atrocities of the Holocaust, the German people are equally
culpable.
In
fact, VJ continued it could even be argued that the Allies in World War I were
to blame as well as the Treaty of Versailles required the German people to pay
back the debts of all involved in the war, which crippled their economy and led
to enormous hyper-inflation in the Reichsmark.
Elena
explained that most people choose the norm because it is the path of least
resistance. In fact, the markets have
bought into this fact completely and that is why billions are spent on market
research because companies believe that consumers are predictable because they
gravitate towards a mean.
The
method of trial and error, she continued, that leads to the formation of
principles and character in a human being requires a person to take accountability and responsibility for their actions - and this most people
simply do not want to do.
It
is the reason that most people are content having sometimes completely
incompetent politicians make decisions for the people because most individuals
simply do not want to take the accountability for their actions. Once things go awry, it is convenient for
them to play the blame game, which is very prevalent in the culture of Washington
today.
Tommy
mentioned that this very "Lemming mentality" (a lemming is a mammal
that has characteristics of a herd mentality) is the basis of issues such as
racial discrimination today. He bought
up the example of a Cheerios commercial that featured a biracial family. The Cheerios ad, which was posted on YouTube
received such vitriolic racial comments that comments had to be disabled
altogether. It is reproduced for your
viewing below:
Thankfully
the next generation is more progressive in their thoughts about the issue. Enjoy!
Miley Cyrus and the Ongoing Feminist Movement
VJ
bought up Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMA music awards and how Miley has
been castigated by many for the excessively provocative nature of the performance.
Although
it is no doubt provocative VJ asked the question why should Miley be
castigated for her performance and not men who engage equally provocative
performances on stage? Does it not seem
very unfair to treat both sexes differently?
 |
| Miley Cyrus |
Also,
VJ added, many people fail to realize that Miley is an entertainer and she took
her performance out of Madonna's playbook, who did the very same thing in the
1980s.
Madonna
was castigated in the 80s for encouraging freedom of expression of women and
found the prevailing attitude that is was okay for a man to express his sexual
side and taboo for a woman to do the same, very hypocritical.
 |
| Madonna |
Today,
Madonna is worth over $500 million. So there may be reason be believe that she
won the argument on that case.
We
discussed how there may be more to the picture than what is on the
surface. Tommy mentioned that the men-to-women
ratio in colleges around the country are 1:1.5, in other words the compilation
is 40% men and 60% women. Single mothers
are becoming more a norm in society due to the financial independence today's
economy has made possible for women.
In
fact, Tommy continued, that the service economy of today favors women over the
dying manufacturing economy that was run predominantly by men.
As
Miley Cyrus and entertainers like her continue to push the gender issue, Tommy
believes that this gender inequality issue will become rapidly more and more
important in the coming couple decades.
It will no longer be the norm, he says, for the man to be the sole
breadwinner or even a breadwinner for the household in the near future.
These
roles may, in fact, be switched up, and it will actually be done that way by
choice.
The
next meeting will be on Sunday, October 6th, 2013.
For
those who have not attended a meeting, but would like to attend, please email
your wish to VJ Arjan at scarletkings@gmail.com
Also it seems that there are many domestic and
international readers who are following our blog posts not only in the United
States but all over the world including Europe, Latin America, and Asia. If you
wish to be added to our email list, please email at scarletkings@gmail.com
